The fake spy who loved me: The life and crimes of Mark Acklom
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most of us have told the odd tall tale from time to time – but not many people would pretend to be an MI6 agent or a wealthy Swiss banker.
Those are just a couple of the outlandish lies told by notorious British conman Mark Acklom - whose life of deception started as a teenager and took him all over Europe.
Sky’s crime correspondent Martin Brunt spent years on Acklom’s trail, after one of his devastated victims contacted him asking for help.
As Acklom’s latest court hearing gets underway, Martin tells Niall why some stories are stranger than fiction.
Producer: Tom Gillespie
Editor: Mike Bovill
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sky News, the full story first. |
| 0:08.8 | Coming up, Britain's most notorious conman. |
| 0:12.8 | For years, Mark Acklam convinced people he was a Swiss banker, sometimes a spy. |
| 0:18.9 | Hundreds of thousands of pounds disappeared just as quickly as he did, |
| 0:22.7 | and it took our crime correspondent four years to track him down. |
| 0:26.7 | Martin Brunt tells the story next. |
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| 1:32.1 | When you work the crime beat, you quickly learn that some people are exactly who they say they are. |
| 1:37.9 | And then some people are Mark Acklam. Charming, educated, intelligent, and accused of persuading a woman to part with hundreds of |
| 1:46.6 | thousands of pounds whilst posing as, amongst other things, a Swiss banker and a spy. A tip from a |
| 1:52.7 | source led Sky's former crime correspondent Martin Brunt on a four-year tour of Europe, tracking a man |
| 1:58.6 | who changed names more often than addresses. |
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